


Blessed are the Weak

by MysteryMe110



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Fix-It, Gen, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Team Cap - Freeform, skinny steve wields mjolnir, skinny!Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 15:46:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19154086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysteryMe110/pseuds/MysteryMe110
Summary: In their quest to undo the snap, Steve & Natasha go to Vormir together, and leave with the Soul Stone. The sacrifice? Not a life so much as a symbol.Alternatively: Endgame, but no one dies or abandons their friends to go back in time.





	Blessed are the Weak

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been about five years since I’ve last written any fanfiction (and I published it on fanfiction.net if that tells you how long it’s been) and I’ve been focusing on my independent writing projects since then. However, Steve Rogers is one of my favorite characters of all time, and ever since I watched Endgame I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how disappointed I am in his ending and how much better I feel it could’ve been written. So, this happened.

_Present Day:_

 

When it’s all over, Steve’s surprised to find himself still in one piece. A considerably smaller piece, maybe, but still just the one.

 

So much has gone down in so little time—hard to think about it now. Hard to wrap his head around what happened, what didn’t, what could’ve and what almost had. Every one of the billion alternatives that might’ve replaced this one.

 

But it’s all okay now... right? Everything is fine again. Thanos was defeated. All those who’d been lost have been returned: Sam, Bucky, Wanda, T’Challa, even Vision. Those five years the world would never get back (was that the right decision? should he have allowed Tony to make that call?) but right now lost time is the least of his worries, not when the alternative had been so horrible.

 

Steve knows he shouldn’t think about it (it’s over, it’s _over_ ) but sometimes he can’t stop himself. Memories wash over him in waves.

 

…

 

_Flashback: A year after the snap._

It’s a usual Friday night, and Steve spends it over at the Avengers Facility with Natasha, dinner and a movie, her letting him pick (they alternate, it’s only fair) and then complaining about what he chooses. It’s tradition at this point.

 

“I hate action movies,” she says, tossing stale popcorn into her mouth as James Bond flirts with a girl on a train, then gets ambushed by a group of men always bulkier and uglier than he is.

 

“God, me too,” says Steve, as Bond defeats the men and runs off with the girl, and they start ripping each other’s clothes off in an empty railcar. “It was… it was on my list. Tony suggested it.” This was before they’d stopped talking. Right before. All the running and hiding since then—Steve hadn’t found the time.

 

Natasha graciously turns off the movie. They sit in silence for a while. She places the popcorn between them and they take turns throwing pieces into each other’s mouths. It’s too buttery for his liking, it always is, but he never says anything. He’s pretty sure Nat doesn’t like mashed potatoes (she never eats it) but she always makes it with him anyway. Sometimes he wishes he could just forget about his therapy groups, the food drives, all the little things he does to try and help the everyday people post-snap and just live here with Natasha full-time. He has an apartment in the city for convenience sake but he’s down here every three, four days and he never misses a Friday night. It’s the only thing that feels normal. They used to do this before the snap (though, back then, Sam had joined them).

 

Steve doesn’t realize he’s crying until Nat takes the popcorn and places it on the ground. She crawls over the couch cushions, headbutts him in the chest, says nothing. He wraps one arm around her back and rubs small circles with his thumbs in the space between her shoulder blades. She isn’t looking at him, and he can’t tell whether or not she’s crying with him.

 

“I love you,” he says. It’s the first time he’s said it to her. He’s only said it to three other people in his life, that he can remember—his mom, Bucky, and Sam, though he always meant to with Wanda, when the time was right—and she doesn’t say it back, at first, but he’s okay with that. He didn’t say it to hear it back, he just wants her to know. He doesn’t know what he would do if she weren’t here with him. If she’d gone with the rest of them. She’s the only living being on this planet that he has left. Besides Clint (who he knows she cries over almost every other night, wondering where he is, what terrible things he’s doing) he knows he’s the same for her.

 

The movie is off and the popcorn is on the floor and it’s not even that late (last time he checked, not yet 10:30pm) but somehow they end up falling asleep like that, Natasha’s head over his chest, Steve rubbing circles on her back, wrapped up in each other, breathing in what the other breathes out. She never does say it back that night, but when he wakes up she’s on her knees in front of him, running a fresh mug of coffee under his nose, pushing the hair back from his forehead, and he knows. He hears everything she doesn’t say.

 

…

 

_Flashback: Vormir_

The plan goes through multiple iterations, every possible combination they can think of (Steve nearly ends up going back to New York with Tony, Scott, and Bruce—before Clint suggests that they’re probably over-powering that group) but ultimately, they settle it. Clint and Steve switch out, and Steve heads off to Vormir with Natasha. Clint goes with Tony; if they’re going to pull off a heist, he says, it’s best they have someone capable of a little finesse. Natasha could’ve gone, too, but she and Clint talked it over. She’d rather be with Steve than the others, and he understands. They saw this thing begin together, they bore the pain of it side-by-side, and together they would see it end.

 

But there’s a problem. Of course there is, couldn’t have happened any other way. Steve and Nat get to the dark and fiery and alien world that is Vormir and who else but Red Skull is waiting for them, just as fearsome as Steve remembers him, but? Somehow, on this strange planet, he seems to belong. Each as alien as the other. There’s something about Red Skull that has changes, too—he lacks the anger Steve knew him for. There’s a stillness, a melancholic acceptance in his sunken eyes, and Steve wonders at the powers of the Soul Stone, whether it was _it_ that sucked the passion from him, or whether it was a lifetime condemned to failure and solitude.

 

But whatever Vormir has done to him, Red Skull isn’t entirely gone from the vessel of his body, and Steve can sense his quiet glee as he informs them of the decision to be made: “To earn the Soul Stone, one must sacrifice that which he loves.”

 

Natasha doesn’t even hesitate. She thinks she knows what this is, and who Steve is—and she’s not entirely wrong—and she dives for the cliff like her life depends on it (when, really, it’s her death that does) and lucky Steve knows her so well, else he might not have been quick enough to grab her around the waist before she’s reached it, to turn her around to face him.

 

“Let me do this for you,” she begs him. She looks so afraid. She really thinks he’s stopped her from throwing herself to her death just so he can take her place. “I… I want to do this for you. You made me into a better person.”

 

“You did that on your own,” he tells her. “And, for the record, that goes both ways.”

 

She’s tries to fight him, and usually (because of her speed, her smarts, her natural flexibility) she’d win, but he’s got a good grip on her waist and on strength alone he’s got her beat. He can tell that she’s holding back tears and he wants to tell her, _you don’t have to. It’s just me. It’s just us_.

 

“I love you,” she tells him, for the first time, and he wraps her up in his arms and says, “I know.” Because he loves her back so much it’s almost beyond words. And that’s why he can’t allow her to do this. But that’s why he can’t force her to do _that_ either.

 

Steve turns to Red Skull. “You said we have to sacrifice what we love. You never said it has to be a person.”  

 

Steve and Natasha wake together in the waters of Vormir, with the Soul Stone between them. Steve, surprisingly, still has his shield. But now he can barely lift it, and on the walk back Natasha has to hold it for him, lend him her arm for support. His lungs strain, and the world feels ten times heavier than it has been in a long time. It’s a familiar feeling, and Steve isn’t sure whether or not he likes it, and tries not to think about what it means.

 

…

 

_Flashback: The Final Battle_

Thor and Tony don’t want Steve to join them when they confront Thanos, but he’s here and he’s still breathing and as long those are both true Steve knows where he has to be, and neither has the heart to stop him. Steve’s arm shakes under the weight of his shield, but even Tony fails to make a quip about it. They were all so quiet when Steve got back, _staring_ at him, like they couldn’t recognize him without all the flash and bulk, like they couldn’t believe the extent of what he’d sacrificed. It was almost funny. Natasha—she would’ve been a sacrifice. A real one. Unthinkable. But this? Steve hadn’t realized it until he’d made the choice, but this was the only thing that could’ve ever set him free.

 

On the empty battlefield, Thanos takes one look at him and laughs.  


“ _You_?” he says, a tone of euphoric incredulity. “Are you really the same man who held me off bare-handed, versus five infinity stones? The same man who led the charge against my army?”

 

“No,” says Steve, of the second allegation. “That was T’Challa.”

 

“Do you really think,” he seethes, “That you can defeat _me_ , like _that_?”

 

“This body has fought off tougher things than you before,” says Steve.

 

Tony looks at him curiously. “Like what?”

 

Steve smiles. “Tuberculosis.”

 

Even so much smaller, so much weaker, Steve has retained a good eye and a good arm for aim, and manages to land a few strong blows with his shield while Tony and Thor stay close and do the brunt of the damage. But then Tony and Thor are on the ground, and Steve hasn’t got another choice, and up close Thanos hacks away at his shield like it’s nothing but the aluminum trashcan lids he used to hold up between himself and his bully-of-the-day. Thanos laughs again, like the bullies did. He tosses him so far, and Steve hits the ground so hard, that, for a moment, Steve thinks he may be down for good.

 

But he gets up. Of course he gets up. With this body, it’s just par for the course.

 

It’s Thor that gives him the idea, and Thor that gives Steve the opportunity to implement it. Tightening his ruined (and now, thankfully, much lighter) shield to one arm, he holds out his other, and summons the feeling he’d first experienced that day all those ages ago when he’d been light-headed with camaraderie and so eager to join in on the games (so convinced he’d get no farther than the rest) that he’d agreed to take a turn at it. Then he’d felt a spark in his palm, was flushed with this peculiar and overwhelming sensation of _understanding_ , and almost on instinct he let the handle slide through his hand, buried the realization for another time, another day. Though, after that, he did watch Thor’s techniques a little closer.

 

On that day, Mjolnir fits itself into the hand of Steve’s skinny, sickly body like it was made for him, and Steve is tired and worn and _God_ is he sore, but at the touch of it he feels electrified with strength, and he smiles. Because all along this had been inside of him. All along, this was who he was.

 

It’s different than all his fights before the serum. He’d lost the muscle, maybe, but the skill was always in his brain, first and foremost, and he’s retained it. He’s used to fighting people bigger than him and Thanos is—well—bigger than him. Steve fights him as well as he can. The lightening is certainly helpful.

 

Then Thanos brings in his army. The thousands upon thousands of his soldiers, all of whom are—well—bigger than him. And Steve knows it’s hopeless. Even when he was just a scrawny eighteen-year-old, getting into fights in dark alleyways over the same things he would’ve fought over today, he’d known it was hopeless. But if he’d only fought when he’d known he could win, he never would’ve fought at all. Steve tightens what is left of his shield.

 

And then: “ _On your left_.” And it’s Sam. And T’Challa and Wanda and, God, it’s _Bucky_. Steve feels them all looking at him, at his new (no, _old_ ) body, nearly all of them for the first time. But Steve isn’t ashamed. He feels Bucky’s eyes on him. He feels how proud of him he is. How could he ever be ashamed, when he has Bucky’s pride?

 

And the real fight commences, and Steve—skinny as he is, _sickly_ as he is—is the one to shout, “Avengers, assemble!” and the one to whom the greatest heroes of this galaxy all listen. Steve calls Mjolnir back into his hand and is ready to fight with it, die with it if he has to, because he’s complete now, he’s found his way back to what matters. But of course life isn’t like that, it doesn’t just kill you once you’ve decided you’re ready for it, even if you really are. Bucky somehow finds his way to Steve’s side, fighting by his side, like he’d made a habit of 80 years ago, and Sam circles them both overhead, granting Steve hope with every dive and kick and majestic swoop, and the hammer and its lightening has made Steve powerful but he’s still vulnerable and he has no doubt that without them looking out for him he never would’ve made it out of this alive.

 

But he makes it out of this alive. Some aren’t so lucky.

 

It is almost Tony who makes the final snap (even from a distance, Steve can read his intensions, see the desperation in his face) but Carol returns instead, is just a bit faster, just a bit smarter. She yanks the empty gauntlet off Thanos’s hand and Tony has enough sense to toss her the Infinity Stones he’s stolen—from then on, it’s over. She rids the world of his army, but leaves Thanos. Nebula gets the honor of the kill.

 

In the dust and ash that remains in the wake of the battle, Steve is so overcome he can’t speak, can’t move, doesn’t know who to turn to first. But it’s Bucky who finds him. Bucky who pulls him into his chest, Steve’s head over his heart, like it always seemed to fit so perfectly, back in the days of bitter New York City winters and a shared bed in the cheapest apartment they could get their hands on. Without Bucky, Steve swears he would’ve frozen to death in the night.

 

But he’s not thinking about that now. Nothing about this situation makes him think of the cold. Steve presses his face as tightly as he can into Bucky’s chest without completely melting into him, Bucky runs his metal hand through Steve’s hair and tucks his chin over his skull and whispers, in a voice of utter awe, “I thought you were bigger.”

 

Steve laughs so hard his knees almost give out, and he holds onto Bucky even tighter.

 

Buck returns his grip. “You’re back,” he whispers, like he can’t quite wrap his head around it.

 

“ _You’re_ back,” Steve answers him. “God, Buck, you wouldn’t believe—”

 

But he can’t finish, because Bucky is crying and he is too. He wrenches his head unwillingly from Bucky’s chest because he has to see him, has to see his face, the one that’s been haunting his dreams for the last half a decade and probably longer.

 

But Bucky pulls away, because there’s Wanda running over—sobbing—to hug them, and there are so many others to greet (Steve hooks onto Sam and does not let go for what feels like a lifetime, and it’s still not long enough) but that’s okay because he’s here, they’re here, they’re _together_. And for the first time in nearly a century, it feels like there’s nothing keeping them apart.

 

…

 

_Present Day:_

 

The week following the second snap, Tony invites all those who’d participated in the final battle to a party at his cute little cabin in the woods. Steve loves the cabin, but he can’t help thinking that—from the sheer amount of people who show—the Avengers Facility might’ve been the safer bet.

 

Steve knows and adores the majority of the people here, but he’s never been great at parties (not unless he’s got Sam’s by his side, his gentle suggestions, his subtle encouragement, the occasional distraction) and he ends up standing alone on the porch, nursing a beer he doesn’t quite like, thinking. Reliving. Sam, unfortunately, is occupied with Carol. He’s _very_ excited at the prospect of yet another Avenger who can fly. Especially one who can also pilot.

 

It’s Morgan, actually, who comes up to him. They know each other, but not well—Steve had always hoped he and Tony might get back on the right foot eventually, but after the Accords (and what happened with Bucky) it never seemed to click. Visits had happened, but they’d never lasted long.

 

“Steve,” says Morgan, and he’s surprised she actually knows his name but he smiles anyway, replies, “Hello, Morgan. How are you?”

 

“Good,” she says. “You look different.”

 

“Uh. Yeah,” says Steve. Sometimes he still lets himself forget it. “I shrunk.”

 

“How?” asked Morgan. “Did you accidentally go through the wash?”

 

“Something like that,” said Steve. He’s laughing. He forgets sometimes how much he likes kids. “I’m alright, though. I don’t mind it. Not really.”

 

Morgan nods. This makes sense to her. Funny how such complicated things make sense to children so easily.

 

But she’s not done with him yet: “Do you… do you have your shield?”  


He’s surprised at the question, but he nods—he always has his shield, even now, and so he produces it for her. Kneels to show it to her, but doesn’t hand it over. He doesn’t want her cutting herself on all the sharp edges.

 

“You broke it!” she cries, affronted, and Steve shrugs.

 

“Guess I did.”

 

“Aren’t you going to fix it?” she asks. “I have super glue.”

 

“I don’t think that’ll cut it this time,” says Steve. “I’ve lost the other pieces.”

 

“That wasn’t very smart of you,” says Morgan, and—God—she sounds just like her father. Steve laughs harder than he has in a year.

 

“Where’s your dad?” Steve asks, because he wants to find him, wants to thank him for the party, beg him to reconsider the toast Steve _knows_ he’s going to make in honor of the ‘Star Spangled Man’ who held off Thanos one-on-one. Steve knows this because Rhodey let him see the first draft.

 

“Daddy told me to find you,” says Morgan. “Because I was bothering him. He’s with your friend and he said you probably needed someone to talk with.”

 

“Which friend?” asks Steve. “Sam?” But she shakes her head.

 

“The one with the pretty hair,” says Morgan. “Bucket?”

 

Steve thinks his heart stops. It might have, actually, considering this one’s track record. His mother had had to restart it, on his count, at least six times.

 

“Where are they?” Steve asks, and Morgan points him to the lake, and he thanks her and guides her to Happy before heading there himself.

 

Tony isn’t there anymore, but Bucket is. He’s facing the water, looking at the orange streaks of sunset and its rippling reflection over the lake. Steve makes sure his footsteps are audible in the grass—he knows how much Bucky hates people sneaking up behind him, even back when they were kids, and he doesn’t plan on getting stabbed today. Not in this state.

 

“Enjoying the view?” Steve asks, once they’re standing side-by-side, staring in the same direction, but Steve can’t help his gaze slipping to his periphery, running down the slope of Bucky’s nose, the angle of his chin. In the sunset, he is gorgeous (he’s always gorgeous) and Steve’s wrists itch with the urge to paint him. But he folds the scene into his memory for later.

 

“Sure,” says Bucky. “But it’s better in Wakanda.”

 

“Isn’t everything?”

 

Bucky side-eyes him and smiles. Steve returns it. He wants to ask: _where are you going after this?_ He hopes he knows the answer.

 

“I heard you were talking with Tony,” Steve says instead, and Bucky nods.

 

“Yeah,” he says. “I was.” There’s a pause. Steve waits, baited breath. “He apologized.”

 

Steve blinks, hardly able to process it.

 

“He says… he says he never should’ve done what he did. He says it wasn’t my fault and he knew that then and he knows it now. He says he’s been living with the guilt of it ever since it happened, and that’s the reason he never called you, because he was so ashamed of what he did. Because he was afraid to face you.”

 

“He’s never told me any of that,” says Steve.

 

“Yeah, well, you’re you,” says Bucky. “I mean, you’re Steve, but to some of these people you’re always going to be Captain America. The fuckin’ paragon of virtue, y’know? It’s a lot to live up to for him, I think. A lot to face and admit your own flaws to.”

 

“You got all that from one conversation by the lake?” asks Steve.

 

Bucky snorts. “It was a good conversation,” he says. “I got to apologize, too. Myself. Not just let you do it for the both of us.”

 

The sunset goes from the startling blare of orange to a sleepy, glittering purple, and somehow Steve ends up sitting on the grass and Bucky beside him, bare feet dipped into the lake. He tries not to think about the cold this is bound to bring him.

 

And Bucky asks the question Steve hasn’t yet found the nerve to voice: “What will you do now?”

 

He’s right to ask—it’s been a week and Steve is still trying to avoid the answer. Not like he’d had time to really ponder it, anyway; the social disarray of half the world population disappearing was nothing compared to the disarray of them coming _back_. A happy disarray, but still. Him and Sam and Natasha had been busying themselves running errands through the city, distributing food, reconnecting broken families, stopping crime wherever it cropped up in the chaos. And that’s not to mention Steve’s own preoccupation with readjusting to this new-old body, and finding clothes that actually still fit. Most of his outfits this past week were hand-me-downs from Clint’s teenage years. Nat had promised to take him shopping once things had finally calmed down.

 

But that’s just the thing: Steve is small now. Shuri has already designed him a nearly-exact replica of his former shield (of course she has) with some ‘enhancements’ she’d yet to explain, but even so. Steve is stubborn but he isn’t delusional. He doesn’t have the super-strength, doesn’t have the agility, doesn’t have the healing capabilities, doesn’t even breathe right. He can’t keep doing this anymore. Even if he could… he doesn’t want to.

 

“It might be time for Captain America to lay down the shield,” says Steve, but he’s already thinking about Sam, about what it would look like to have it situated between his wings, red stripes and a white star painted on the center of his vest. Steve hasn’t painted in a while. He figures that that’s as good a place as any to get back into it.

 

“And what’s Steve Rogers going to do?” asks Bucky. At this point, he has forgone all pretext of being interested in the sunset; he watches Steve with an intensity that nearly burns him.

 

“I discovered, recently, that a friend of mine is still alive,” says Steve (something that happens concerning often in his life). “His name is Phil Coulson. I’ve been thinking that I might work with him to rebuild SHIELD. I… I had to tear down what Peggy built, but I don’t have to leave it like that. I can make it into what she intended it to be all along.”  
  
Bucky nods, slow. “And the Avengers?”

  
“If Fury needs my help or my advice, I won’t keep him from it,” says Steve. “I mean, now that I’m useless in basically every other way—”

  
Bucky cuts him off immediately. It’s like he was waiting for this.

  
“You’re not useless, Steve,” he says. “You were never useless. You’re the smartest guy I know. You’re the bravest and the kindest, too, but I’m not even talking about that right now… Steve, you’re _smart_. You’re a fucking tactical genius. You make plans no one but you could ever think of, and then you implement them like it’s no sweat. You inspire people, you gain their loyalty, they follow your lead like nobody else… and you think that was just because of your fancy fucking body? You’re wrong, Steve, that was _you_ , that was all you. The world may be done with Captain America but it still needs Steve Rogers.”

 

Steve stares at Bucky’s dimming face in the sunlight. His mind flashes back, unwillingly, to some time eighty-or-so years ago, Bucky in his army uniform, Steve watching him go.

 

_“There are men laying down their lives,” Steve says. “I’ve got no right to do any less than them. That’s what you don’t understand. This isn’t about them.”_

_  
“Right, because you’ve got nothing to prove.”_

 

Bucky had always seen right through him: Steve had meant what he’d said, sure, but he _had_ been trying to prove himself, prove his worth after a lifetime of being underestimated, of being told he was nothing, would amount to _less than_ nothing, might as well have saved his mother the pain of raising a crippled child and died in his crib. The eugenics movement had, frankly, not had a great effect on his self-worth. The Nazis were the face of every person, every ideology, that had ever told him he was worthless, that the world would be better off if he was dead. Of course he’d wanted to fight them! Of course he’d wanted to prove himself! Who wouldn’t? It was easy to look back at that life in nostalgia, but the 1930s had been no cake-walk. Not for someone like him.

 

_Someone like him_. Steve is here, now, in the 21st century with hundreds of victories in his belt and a hammer that spits lightening. But he is small again. With asthma and a heart murmur. And he has… he has nothing to prove.

 

His friends love him as he is. Bucky loves him as he _is_. And Mjolnir has shown him: it doesn’t matter his body. Big or small, Steve is worthy. He’s always been. Just like his mom always told him.

 

Only when the sun has quenched itself in the lake and blackness has crept out over the horizon does Bucky reach across the space between them and squeeze Steve’s hand. Steve squeezes back twice as tightly. 

 

From inside the cabin, Natasha calls them. It’s time for sparklers. Morgan has never used them before and wants Steve and his pretty-haired friend to show her how.

 

“Are you going back to Wakanda?” Steve asks, on their trek back.

 

“Wherever you are, I am,” answers Bucky, and that’s all he needs to hear. That’s all he ever did.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed - please leave feedback!! I have a couple other ideas for Steve-centered fic, so if enough people like this one I might write more.


End file.
